Senate Dems Find Wedge Issue on Abortion

Posted on Apr 6, 2006

From victoriana.com

This prudish depiction of courtship in
the Victorian age represents the
apotheosis of sexual interaction in the
minds of many conservative American
Christians today. Democrats hope to
exploit those conservatives’ opposition
to sex education and contraception as
a backdoor method of pushing for
abortion rights.

The Senate Democratic leadership will push for expanded access to contraceptives and sex education—a nationally popular move, but a bitter pill for the prudish right wingers who are desperately afraid that someone, somewhere, may be enjoying a sexual act.

The Hill:

The Senate Democratic leadership says it has found a wedge issue to strengthen the party’s position on abortion rights, which top strategists think has become a liability in recent years.

The wedge is legislation expanding access to contraceptives and sex education, which polls show a majority of Americans support but which Democrats are betting will be difficult for social conservatives in the Republican base to accept.

Democratic strategists say the time is right for action because women who support abortion rights but are not politically engaged are alarmed by the confirmation of Samuel Alito as Sandra Day O’Connor’s replacement on the Supreme Court and by the passage of legislation strictly curbing the availability of abortion.

The glaring incongruity in the “Pro-Life” movements anti-abortion strategy has always been their irrational opposition to sex education and birth control. It always seemed to me that if you wanted to reduce the number of abortions, the first step would be to reduce unintended pregnancies.

This gap in logic is not merely intellectually inconsistent however, it is morally repugnant as well.

The most common argument the Conservative Right makes for opposing ready access to sex education and birth control, is their belief that without the foreboding possibility of an unplanned pregnancy, people of all ages would simply run out and have a lot of premarital sex.

They are saying that unplanned pregnancy (a.k.a. children) is a deterrent to pre-marital sex.

If pregnancy is a deterrent to people having unapproved sex, when that deterrent is ignored (by virtue of passion, puppy love, or lack of proper sex education) is the resulting child by these definitions, God’s punishment for his or her parents having sex?

Pro life my ass.

Has their nonsensical proscription in any way reduced the number of unintended pregnancies as measured by the annual number of adoptions, abortions and hastily arranged and statistically doomed marriages?